


The Myth of Makepeace

by seikaitsukimizu



Series: Return to Normalcy Verse [3]
Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Humor, M/M, Slice of Life, Stargate Atlantis AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seikaitsukimizu/pseuds/seikaitsukimizu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John completely forgets about the rumors, just doesn’t notice the way even his own team seems to avoid that one corner of his back yard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Myth of Makepeace

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on LJ in 2008.](http://seikaitsukimizu.livejournal.com/144789.html)

  
John completely forgets about the rumors, just doesn’t notice the way even his own team seems to avoid that one corner of his back yard. He just knows that Euler likes that place, beneath the tree that leans over from another yard and has grass just out of reach of the automatic sprinklers, yet somehow continues to grow as lush and green as the rest of the lawn. Not that Euler is outside often, but from time to time he escapes and lies there, always in the same spot. There’s even a small cat-sized indentation in the lawn when it grows tall.  
  
Not too tall. Rodney has him on a strict two-week mowing schedule and withholds blowjobs and the remote control until John spends an afternoon sweaty and sometimes shirtless--to make the neighbors stare and Rodney jealous, he’s not above using his looks in retaliation to forced manual labor--and gets the lawn down to an even half-inch height . Despite his dislike of botany, Rodney is surprisingly anal about how his yard is kept.   
  
John mainly does it to make sure he has the remote. It’s the only way he can get football on the TV. Not even the fact that Lorne comes over to watch the games with him can make Rodney change his mind, which he found out once when they watched a special on black holes and star formation and Rodney kept them there with a death grip on John’s thigh and Euler on Lorne’s lap. Sometimes, John thinks, Rodney can be really, really evil.  
  
Since then, though, John is very prompt about mowing the lawn, and other than sometimes cursing General O’Neill for having such a big yard, doesn’t think much of it. But after spring comes around and the front walk flowers bloom bright and vibrant and fragrant, Rodney makes noises about landscaping. Most of the noises involve sneezing and coughing and a rough, raw voice that John actually finds a bit of a turn on, but doesn’t think much of it since they’re both going off-world often and when are they going to find time to get a landscaper, much less design a new front and back yard?  
  
Even after all this time, he’s still underestimating Rodney. After returning from a mission that involved the accidental ingestion by Chuck of truth serum and learning that he and Cadman have been fucking like bunnies--Cadman’s words, not Chuck’s--he found a new email in his inbox, sent only two minutes after they stepped back through the Gate into the SGC. John thinks about opening it, then decides to send a general email to his team that basically says ‘Yeah, yeah, have all the fun you want, but don’t let it affect the team. Also, dibs on Best Man.’   
  
Predictably, John receives an email back a minute later from Rodney entitled ‘You Are So Sleeping Alone Tonight!!!!’. Actually, it says, ‘Team Relations: Canadians, Americans, and Other Crap.’ John just deletes that one, since he’ll hear its contents on the ride home anyways. As far as he’s concerned, what Cadman and Chuck do in their off hours is none of his business. They overlook the fact that he and Rodney live together, after all.  
  
When he opens the other email, hours later after finishing his mission report and playing a quick game of darts with Lorne while trying not to talk about Chuck and Cadman and what they do in the bedroom, John realizes he needed to pay more attention when Rodney is focused on ‘projects’. The attachments in the email are landscape designs for the front and back, involving a lot of non-flowering plants and tearing up the back yard to redo the sprinkler system.   
  
“How could you do that? What if one of the natives looked over your shoulder?” John decides to pre-empt Rodney’s Cadman rant with his one of own. “Off-world negotiations are not for projects, research, or any activity that might be construed as rude to the potentially hostile aliens!”  
  
“Oh please. I’ve seen you play Tetris during mission briefings. How is that different?” Rodney fiddles with his seatbelt. “Did the marines shorten the strap? It feels tighter.”  
  
At the next stoplight John reaches over and opens Rodney‘s door just enough to get the belt uncaught. “It’s totally different, McKay. The worst Landry will do is ground me, which you don’t mind because you get to work in Lemuria!”  
  
Rodney scowls at that, looking out the window. He keeps silent for a minute, then quietly, stubbornly, “I’d make sure we weren’t grounded for long. Cadman blows things up when she’s bored.”  
  
John has to filter that through his Rodney-speak translator and realizes it’s basically ‘I’d miss going through the Gate, too.’ He feels a moment of pride and affection before he remembers why they’re arguing in the first place. “It’s still a risk. If I have to keep your laptop on missions-”  
  
“If you want to pry my computer from my hands, you can try. Just remember Ronon gave up even bothering.”  
  
“That’s because you bribed him with power bars.” It’s still painful to bring up, but not as much, not enough for a breakdown. It’s progress. “Fine, I’ll give you an extra hour per day if you stop working off-world during negotiations.”  
  
“Three hours.”  
  
“One and a half.”  
  
“Two.” Rodney points at him. “And I get first pick on dinner four times a week. I’m sick of hamburgers.”  
  
“Fine.” He’s willing to give up dinner rights for a higher probability of not running from angry natives.   
  
A few minutes later he’s parked in front of the house, and Rodney leans on the hood of the car as he gets out. “So?”  
  
John sighs, looking over at the walkway garden and the closed flowers and thinks of the bees he saw hovering around during his morning jog. He glances to Rodney, nose already starting to turn red and thinks of the second epi-pen that’d been shoved into his hands this morning. “Yeah, sure, whatever you want. M’not really a fan of yellow, anyways.”  
  
“Good.” Rodney heads for the front door. “The contractor I contacted should be here on Monday. Since I’ll be at that godforsaken lecture at the University, you’ll have to oversee the work.”  
  
John stares after Rodney, then mutters, “Son of a bitch,” before slamming his car door and following McKay into the house.   
  
The Cold War lasts all of one night before Rodney apologizes with a shower fuck and surrendering the mining rights to a copper vein on the border between their villages in The Game. The weekend is comfortable and swift and Rodney complains about the idiots he has to interview for Lemuria and then it’s Monday and John is drinking his second cup of coffee and watching the landscapers dig up the back yard before he remembers the rumors about Makepeace.  
  
He runs out barefoot and shirtless talking about starting in the front, which is of course when there’s a crunch against the shovel, and one of the diggers lifts a skull out of the ground.  
  
~*()*~  
  
“Well,” Carson says, “I guess I shouldn’t dismiss those rumors of that chemist that vanished after he pissed off Rodney.”  
  
Rodney scowls and John bites back a grin because, really, this isn’t the right time to joke. After calling the SGC, the marines in charge of digging brought up an entire skeleton to be brought in and analyzed. It’s actually not that big a deal around base thanks to O’Neill’s reputation, but John’s still silently freaking out because there’s been a skeleton. In his back yard.  
  
No wonder the hell beast liked sitting on that spot. “So what’ve we got, Carson?” The police aren’t involved, due to the secrecy of the program, but he knows at least one neighbor kid saw them remove the body, and he really wants to have an answer for when the neighbors come knocking. Or start moving out in droves.  
  
“Well, from the rate of tissue decay and the status of the bones, I’d have to say they’re maybe eight, nine years old.”   
  
“Oh my god, it’s Colonel Makepeace! I knew O’Neill was a psycho, but Christ on a-”  
  
“It might not be Makepeace,” John says. “You haven’t compared dental records yet, have you?”  
  
“Just give me a moment here and…” He types something into the computer. “Ah, yup. Sorry lads, this here is poor Colonel Makepeace.”  
  
Rodney clutches at John’s arm and glares at him, as if this is somehow his fault and it wasn’t Rodney who set up Daniel giving John the key to the house with the dead body in the back yard. He ignores his boyfriend in favor staring at the bones, trying to comprehend how O’Neill had done it, much less gotten away with it for nearly a decade. When he looks up at the screen to compare the skull’s teeth with Makepeace’s x-rays, he catches a twitch on Carson’s lips.  
  
Ever alert, he also spots the privacy curtain moving, and he can hear a barely held-back snicker. A snicker with a southern accent.  
  
His first thought is, ‘I’m going to kill Cameron.’ What he says is, “I’m gonna kill Cameron.”  
  
“What? Why? I know he’s an idiot but why--” And John can tell the instant Rodney hears the noise too. His eyes narrow at Carson. “Oh, don’t tell me you-”  
  
Carson breaks out in a grin, letting out a rough laugh. “I’m sorry, Rodney. It’s just…you should’ve seen your face! And when Colonel Mitchell asked me to play along, I just….I couldn’t help myself!”  
  
“Oh, oh, you’re so losing your cable tonight!” The laughter behind the curtain has reached booming proportions. “You too, Mitchell! Don’t think I don’t recognize those hillbilly boots of yours!”  
  
The man of the hour steps out, hands holding his sides, laughing. He looks at McKay’s red, squinty face, John’s stoic one, and doubles over as he laughs harder. Carson joins in, slapping Mitchell on the back. It’s a good five minutes before both of them run out of breath, panting between laughs. Others have come over to see what all the noise is about. Vala is bouncing on her heels, Daniel’s smirking, and Teal’c looks exceedingly smug for an alien who didn’t know what was going on.  
  
SG-1 has to pay. Has to pay big time. He and Rodney have crossed arms and are glaring at the group as a whole. They had to have set this up months ago, maybe even longer. Maybe since he and Rodney took over the house.  
  
Yes, they’ll pay, and they’ll pay big.  
  
“Oh come on,” Mitchell says, finally straightening up. “Can’t you take a little joke? Look,” he picks up a femur and points to a tiny, tiny inscription, easily not noticeable of you’re panicking about a skeleton on your property. It says ‘Made in Taiwan.’ “See? Harmless. And I just got the doc here,” at that, Cameron puts his arm around the back of Carson’s neck, “to milk it as long as he could.”  
  
“Yes, well, thank you for that very amusing prank, but now I have to go convince a half-dozen people that we’re not murderers or cannibals or Satanists so I can get my yard put back together!”   
  
Rodney’s pissed. Good. That means he’ll help John break into Mitchell’s apartment and glue all their DVD boxes shut. He’s heard how possessive Teal’c is of them. And that’ll just be the beginning. Still, he needs to lull them into a false sense of security, so he grins, one of his nastier, thin grins. The one he used to use on his mother. “They’re right, Rodney. It’s all fun and games. Come on,” he swings an arm around his sputtering partner’s shoulders and waves to the amused--or in Carson’s case, suspicious; he knows them too well--group. “We have a contractor to win over.”  
  
He waits until they’re in the elevator and the doors are shut before slapping a hand over Rodney’s mouth. “Can you hack into Mitchell‘s system without leaving a trace?”   
  
Rodney’s eyes widen, but then they get a gleam. The good gleam. The one that means he thinks John’s had a great idea and he’s so getting sex for it. He pulls John’s hand away. “Crash his credit, or just order everything from a BDSM site and have it delivered to his office?”  
  
“Can you do both?”  
  
Rodney nods, his crooked grin extra sharp. “I can even throw in fifty parking and moving violations that he has yet to pay.”  
  
“Cool,” John says, and together they lean against the back of the elevator, grinning.

**Author's Note:**

> People wanted to know if the rumors of O'Neill killing Colonel Makepeace and burying him in the back yard were true. Well, I decided to answer it.


End file.
